The Psychic Pencil
by George Ernest Arrowsmith

A worthwhile exercise for a Mentalist is to set himself a problem that seems unsolvable and to wrestle with it, and to go on wrestling until a possible (and practical) solution is found. "All things are possible to him who keeps on trying" …

Here, then, is such a problem that occurred to the author. A word had to be chosen from a book, one of several, and all of them had to be genuine and unfaked in any way. The word was to be freely selected from any line on any page of the book. This word had to be encircled by the pencil and the book closed. The pencil was then to be handed to the demonstrator who would discover the word in a standard dictionary and draw a circle around it similar to that of his helper to whom it is handed and, if all has gone well, he should find the word to be identical with the one that he secretly marked. At this point he should be able to examine the dictionary to satisfy himself that it had not been faked in any way. Then, as a finale, the Mentalist should be able to give a correct impression of the whole line in which the word occurred…"